Ever After th-11 Page 4

  I moved. Dress hiked up, I stormed down the hall, blowing into the kitchen and scaring the two I.S. guys standing at the open fridge. The sparkling of pixy dust hung in the air.

  “Pixy!” I shouted, and the two men stared at me. “Where did he go?”

  Wide-eyed, they said nothing, the pie between them like guilt given substance.

  “Where did the damn pixy go!” I repeated, my heart thudding.

  “Pixy?” one of them asked, as if I were asking about a unicorn.

  The sound of a vehicle starting came in through the open window, and I ran to the back door. Adrenaline surging, I shoved the door open. Cool night air hit me, misty with no moon—and the sifting silver dust of a pixy trailed like a moonbeam. It drifted to the sidewalk running past the Dumpster and vanishing around the corner.

  Breathless, I followed the tracing of dust, my heels sending shocks up my spine as I clip-tapped around the corner. A squeal of tires brought me to a halt, and I put a hand on the Dumpster and watched as a blue Ford truck drove away, tires smoking. Anger sparked, but it wasn’t until it hit a speed bump and the passenger door flew open that I was sure.

  N-n-n-n-nick.

  Chapter Three

  The kitchen was bright with electric light, loud with the shrieks of pixies, and with a snap, I flicked the coffeemaker on before turning back to my sandwich. It was a rather large room, newly remodeled with stainless-steel counters, two stoves, and my mom’s old fridge with the automatic ice dispenser right in the door. My spelling equipment hung over the center island counter, copper pots and ceramic spelling spoons making it look less like the industrial kitchen at the back of a church that it had started out as. Ivy’s thick country-kitchen table where she did most of her research was depressingly empty. She’d been gone this whole week, out in Flagstaff helping Glenn and Daryl get settled in their new digs.

  Standing at the counter in my evening gown, surrounded by cold cuts, condiments, and a half-empty two-liter bottle of pop, I clenched my teeth and wished the pixies would go away. They were playing war among the hanging copper pots, giving me a headache. Copper was one of the few metals that wouldn’t burn them, and they loved banging into it. Telling Jenks about the abducted Rosewood babies had been bad enough, but bringing Nick into it had left us both in a bad mood that his kids weren’t helping get rid of. Nick. If there was anyone who could irritate me by simply breathing, it was Nick.

  The self-proclaimed thief once professed that he’d loved me, and I think he had, inasmuch as he could love another person. He loved money and the security he thought that it represented more. I honestly believed that he felt justified for all the trouble he’d heaped upon me. I hadn’t trusted him for a long time, but when he had betrayed not just me but Trent in the same breath, I’d written him off. That he lured Jenks’s eldest son, Jax, into a life of crime and hardship just pissed me off.

  I’d not heard from Nick since he had spirited himself—and presumably Jax—out of Trent’s high-security lockup. Only a demon could have done it. I frankly didn’t give a damn if Nick had gotten himself indebted to a demon, but I did care about who might be holding his leash—and why he was again on this side of the ley lines stealing Rosewood infants.

  The big knife Ivy left out to scare magazine salesmen was too big to comfortably cut my sandwich, but I used it anyway, setting it down on the counter with a thud when an unpopped kernel of popcorn zinged over my head and clattered against the wall.

  “Jenks!” My shout sent a strand of hair drifting. “Your kids are driving me nuts!”

  From the sanctuary-turned-living-room I heard him yell, “Get the hell out of the kitchen!”

  Sure. That ought to do it. Frowning, I set the sandwich on a napkin, little drops of water from the lettuce making spots on it.

  I reached for a paper towel as Belle edged into the kitchen, riding Rex like an elephant. The fairy had her feet snuggled in behind Rex’s ears and she gave the cat a tap with the end of her bow when Rex threatened to sit down and spill her backward. Changing her mind, the orange cat twined about my ankles instead. Belle was an odd contrast of a pixy silk’s bright colors and a fairy’s naturally gaunt paleness. Never would I have imagined that Jenks would suffer to let a fairy live in his garden, but the small warrior woman had somehow become a part of the church—even if it had been her clan who had killed Jenks’s wife. That the fairy was now wingless might have something to do with it, but I think he admired her grit.

  “Your dad s-s-says to get outs-s-side,” she lisped around her long teeth, her face turned upright at the noisy battle. “You shame your-s-s-selves!” With a disgusted snarl, she smacked Rex’s flank as she purred and rubbed against me, hoping for a fallen morsel. “Get out!” she yelled at them. “Now!”

  My head was exploding from their noise, but about half of them started for the hallway, flying backward and still shooting popcorn kernels at each other with slingshots. Someone shrieked when a seed punched through her wing, and the shouted threats got serious as the girls sided against the boys. There was a sharp ping when a seed hit my biggest spell pot and ricocheted into me, making my eyes narrow. Jenks was giving them a lot of latitude, knowing that as soon as it warmed up, half of them were going to leave to make homes for themselves.

  “All right, you lot!” Jenks shouted as he flew into the kitchen, a faint red dust of annoyance spilling from him. “You heard Belle. Get out before I bend your wings backward! If you’re cold, put on the long johns Belle made you, but I want you outside clearing the lines! Jumoke, get your sister a patch. You made it, you fix it. Do it nicely or you’re going to do midnight sentry with Bis no matter how cold it is!”

  I tossed my paper towel, exchanging a weary look with Belle as they flowed out of the kitchen with a chorus of complaints, going across the hall and up the flue in the back living room by the sound of it. Jumoke, Jenks’s only dark-haired son, helped the pixy with the hole in her wing, stoically taking the verbal abuse the eight-year-old pixy was heaping on him. She’d probably be on her own next year, fully grown and ready to start a family. Why Jumoke hadn’t left yet was obvious. Black-haired pixies were often killed on sight by their own kind. He, at least, would be staying.

  Belle nudged Rex into motion, and she followed them out. It was too cold for fairies, but if she was sitting on Rex, she’d be okay. The cat door squeaked, and Jenks flew a red-dusted path to the kitchen spigot, where he could watch the garden and his kids dispersing into the damp spring night. His hands were on his hips and his feet were spread wide, but he seemed more worried about Jax than the noise.

  Belle’s touch was showing in surprising places, and Jenks wasn’t looking so much like Peter Pan these days. He still had the tights and garden sword at his hip that he used to chase off birds, but his usual green gardening coat had been replaced by a flashy multicolored jacket with tails and a dark orange vest. Belle’s work. With the hunter-green shirt, it made a striking statement with his curly blond hair, trim physique, skintight boots and tights, and that narrow waist and wide shoulders. His dragonfly-like wings blurred to nothing as he watched the dusty glows from his grown children in the garden. Though his feet never lifted off, the noise of his wings increased when the cat-size shadow of Bis joined them; then he relaxed.

  “Thanks,” I said in relief as I took my sandwich to the table. “They don’t listen to me.”

  Jenks frowned as he flew over the center counter, spilling a sour green dust on the cheese and making it glow briefly. “They don’t listen to me, either.”

  It was a not-so-subtle reminder of Jax. Nick’s sudden appearance had us both in a stellar mood. Uptight, I shifted to try to make the dress feel more comfortable, finally sitting sideways to the table in the hard-backed chair. My clutch purse and shawl were at Ivy’s empty spot, trying to make it look less . . . empty.

  Suddenly Nick didn’t seem so important, and depressed, I leaned sideways over the table as I took a bite of my sandwich, trying not to get any of it on my dress. The coffeem
aker on the counter gurgled its last, but I didn’t bother to get up. Jenks descended from the utensil rack, using his sword to cut a pixy-size chunk of cheese. Spearing it on the tip, he angled the short sword up to eat it right from the blade.

  “So-o-o-o,” he drawled, his dust shifting to a more normal gold. “You never did tell me what Quen wanted.”

  I froze, then took another bite to give myself time to think. Nick had been on my mind when Quen dropped me off: Nick, demons, Rosewood babies. Quen’s request hadn’t even been in the theoretical kitchen, much less on a back burner. “Ah, he wanted to know if I’d take over some of his security duties.”

  “Tink loves a duck, really?” It wasn’t the reaction that I had expected, and my chewing slowed when Jenks flew to sit on the back of Ivy’s monitor where he could see me better. “You told him no, right?”

  I made a little huff, trying to forget that surprising hug. “Trent doesn’t need my help. You’ve worked with him. Tell me I’m wrong. Quen is a nervous worrywart. Trent can handle anything Cincinnati can dish out.”

  His eyes fixed on mine, Jenks tilted his head and bit off a chunk of cheese. “Sure, like his best friend locking him on a boat and blowing it up. Demons possessing said best friend. Said demon’s ex-familiar living in his home, mothering the child he had with the woman who tried to kill him last summer.”

  I sighed. “You think I should have said yes?”

  Jenks shrugged. “Trent always pays his bills.”

  I stared at him. “Who are you and how did you kill my partner?” I asked, and a faint red dust of embarrassment slipped from him. Last year, he would have been insulting Tink with a brandished sword for my even considering the idea, but then again, he had worked with Trent to rescue his daughter.

  Head tilting the other way, he plucked the last chunk of cheese from the tip and ate it, licking the crumbs from his fingers. “Cincy is a fickle woman. One day you’re leading her in a waltz, and the next she’s smacked you and is walking on your face. Round the clock would be an insult, but someone to watch his back, someone in a dress who looks like a pushover and isn’t always telling him what to do? Yeah, he’d go for that.” His eyes met mine. “Especially if it was you.”

  The sandwich went tasteless, and I set it down, two bites in. I’d worked with Trent three times: the first to steal a thousand-year-old elven DNA sample from the ever-after—which ended badly; the second to apprehend HAPA—which turned out okay; and the last at a museum fund-raiser—where the assassins were aiming at me, not him. And yet . . . “I can’t do it, Jenks. I can’t work for him.”

  “So work with him, not for him,” Jenks said, as if that distinction was the easiest thing in the world. “Hell, if I can work with him, you can.”

  “Sure, because you’re great at backup,” I protested. “But I’m not a backup kind of girl.” Jenks nodded solemnly and I slumped, shoving the tomato back into my sandwich. “Trent isn’t either,” I muttered. “I’m not going to change, and I’m not going to delude myself that I can change him. I don’t know if I would if I could.” Focus blurring, I gazed past the kitchen’s blue curtains to the foggy night beyond.

  “Good, because you can’t.” Jenks dropped down, his wings rustling as they lay flat on his back. “No one can change anyone but themselves.”

  My thoughts drifted again to the unusual hug Trent had given me, and then his request that I come out to talk about the abducted infants. I knew the subject of security would come up again. I could see it already, Quen forcing the issue and both Trent and I staunchly against it. I wasn’t averse to spending time with Trent, and I liked kicking ass that needed kicking, but either I was in charge of his security and he took direction from me, or I wasn’t. “People don’t change,” I whispered, silk sliding as I stood to get a cup of coffee.

  “You did.” I turned from the open cupboard to see Jenks smirking at me. “You’re a hell of a lot easier to work with than you were a few years ago.” He paused. “Tink’s little pink rosebuds, has it only been a few years? It seems like three times that.”

  The sound of coffee chattering into the porcelain was comforting, and I smiled faintly. “He invited me out tomorrow to go over the abductions. If it’s warm enough, do you want to come? I could use your take on things.”

  Jenks struck a pose as if shooting from the hip. “Pow! See? You never would have asked me that two years ago. Hell, yes, I’ll come. Elf babies are almost as cute as pixy newlings. What time, so I can get Belle to watch my kids?”

  Cup cradled in my hands, I leaned back against the counter and winced. “Eleven.”

  He snickered. “I’ll wake you up at nine,” he said, then flew to the counter, dust sifting silver and gold from him. “Felix knows about Nick, right? The I.S. probably has an APB out on him already. I bet that put slugs in Trent’s roses.”

  “I didn’t tell Felix,” I said, eyes flicking to Jenks, and the pixy’s eyes widened. “Quen didn’t tell him, either.”

  “Why the hell not? He was right there!”

  “What would be the point?” Avoiding his eyes, I came back to the table. “I can’t prove anything. All I’ve got is a hunch.” Admittedly, a pretty good hunch, but still just a hunch.

  Jenks hovered at the coffeemaker to catch a drop in a pixy-size cup. “Like needing proof ever stopped you before.”

  Blowing over the top, I took a sip. “You’re the one who said I was capable of change. Besides, if there’s one thing Nick can do, it’s disappear. He’s long gone.”

  Sitting cross-legged on the coffeemaker with his cup, Jenks frowned. “And lie. He’s really good at that.” Wings slipping silver dust, he eyed me. “You should call him.”

  “Felix?”

  “No, Nick!” Jenks looked at my clutch purse. “You’ve still got his number, don’t you? It might still work. Ask him if he’s involved. Even if he lies, you’ll be able to tell. At the very least, you’ll know if he’s here or in the ever-after.”

  I sat for a moment and thought about it. I’d never bothered to take Nick’s number out of my phone. I didn’t know why. Maybe because I had so few friends whose number ever made it that far. Jenks made a get-on-with-it gesture, and I half stood, my dress pinching as I stretched across the table to reach my clutch bag. “Okay, I’m game.”

  Jenks flew over to eavesdrop, and I wondered if he’d suggested it in the hopes of finding out about Jax. I heard a stitch give when I fell back into my chair with my purse. Wings clattering, Jenks hovered over my open phone as I scrolled, his dust making the screen blank out until he moved away.

  “Tink’s panties, why do you still have Denon’s number in your address book?” Jenks said, and I made a face at him. Not only was Denon no longer my boss, but the man was dead, entombed and burned to ash in one of Cincy’s tunnels. I helped with the last part, but he got dead all on his own.

  “You got a problem with that?” I asked him, and he held his hands up in surrender. Embarrassed, I punched Nick’s number and put the phone to my ear. The hum of Jenks’s wings was loud as he came to sit on my shoulder so he could hear.

  “I don’t think it’s good anymore,” I said, but then my bobbing foot stilled when the phone machine clicked on and an automated voice told me to leave a message. It was generic but familiar. The number was good. I finally got a beep, and I filled the silence with my attitude.

  “Hello-o-o-o, Nic-k,” I said, hitting the K hard. “You might want to consider getting a new number if you’re going to be doing bad-guy stuff.” Jenks flew backward off my shoulder, giving me a thumbs-up with both hands. “I saw you tonight—running away as usual. If I catch you, you will be in the I.S. lockup with a zip strip bolted to your forehead. That’s a promise from me to you, you hear me, crap for brains? These are babies, not a piece of antiquated piece of history no one cares about. You are stealing someone’s child, and I’m going to—”

  The phone clicked. “Rachel.”

  The flat sound of my name cracked through me, and my eyes darted to Jen
ks, now standing on my plate. It was Nick all right, his tone dry and accusing. The image of his narrow face, scruffy stubble, and casual, unkempt clothes flashed through my mind, and my gut tightened. What had I ever seen in him? But behind his rough exterior was a wickedly clever mind, one that was going to get him in a hole in the ground.

  “Oh,” I said lightly. “So you have a pair after all, huh?”

  “You left me with no recourse but to sell my soul,” Nick said.

  “Oh please.” I stood, pacing to the other side of the kitchen with Jenks hovering by my ear. “You sold your soul all on your own. I never made you summon a demon. I asked you once, but you were summoning him already, so I’m not taking the blame for that. Besides, you don’t belong to Al. Who owns you, Nickie? Is it Newt? You almost deserve her.”

  “There you go again,” he said, his bitter laugh clear through the phone. “Jumping to the wrong conclusion. Listen to me this time. You left me with no recourse but to sell my soul. Thank you.” My lips parted. “I never would have met Ku’Sox any other way.”

  Oh. Shit. My gut tightened even more, and Jenks dropped to the counter before me, pale and his wings unmoving. Ku’Sox was totally deranged and psychotic—along with coddled, endured, and hated by his entire race as their beloved and mentally unstable attempt to circumvent the elven curse that had made them basically barren. The lab-created demon had a tendency to eat people alive because he thought his soul was missing something. Maybe he was right. Nick stealing surviving Rosewood babies for him wasn’t for the good of his species. He was up to something, something really bad. I had to call Algaliarept. My teacher had to know of this like yesterday.

  “Son of a Disney whore,” Jenks whispered.

  I spun, hearing the silence of the church. “Listen to me,” I said, and Nick snorted. “Ku’Sox is psychotic. He’ll kill you as soon as he has everything he needs.”